NEWSPAPER columnist and broadcast personality Ramon Tulfo and his four Marine bodyguards were arrested Tuesday after an armed confrontation with Parañaque policemen over a minor traffic violation.

Parañaque police said Tulfo’s bodyguards disarmed four policemen who accosted them for violating the Metro Manila Development Authority’s Unified Vehicular Volume Reduction Program or color coding scheme at the Sucat interchange in Parañaque about 9 a.m. Tuesday.

A shootout between Tulfo’s group and police almost occurred when about 20 policemen, some of whom were in civilian clothes, arrived at the scene and surrounded Tulfo’s group, Parañaque police chief Supt. Ruben Catabona said.

"We nearly engaged in a shootout,” Catabona said. "Everyone was just waiting for a signal.”

In a telephone interview, Tulfo said, “It felt like a siege.” He said his bodyguard only tried to protect himself from a “hot-headed” policeman who poked a gun at him.

“This cop was not in uniform,” Tulfo said. “He was in civilian clothes and he was lugging an M-16 Armalite rifle. He poked his gun at my security detail, but one of my men overpowered him and was able to disarm him.”

Tulfo said two other policemen who were in uniform, pointed their weapons at his group.

“Naturally, the reaction of my security men was to overpower them,” he said. “We did, and there was a standoff. They wanted us to surrender our weapons to them, but I didn’t want to do that because they would massacre us.”

But the official police report said that Tulfo and his men "arrogantly ignored" the city's Oplan Sita and immediately disarmed the policemen.

Tulfo said he and his group were traveling in two vehicles from Parañaque. He said he and his driver were in a blue Isuzu Trooper with license plate number WJV-994, while his three other bodyguards were in a blue Toyota Revo (WSB-494).

Under the MMDA’s color coding scheme, both vehicles should not have been out on the road Tuesday.

Traffic officer PO1 Felix Dayag stopped Tulfo’s back-up vehicle for violating the color-coding scheme, Catabona said.

Tulfo said the vehicle, in which he was riding and which had a press badge, was not stopped, but his back-up vehicle was stopped. He said the security men in the back-up vehicle, tried to explain to the policemen that they were Tulfo’s bodyguards and their vehicle was also exempted from the color-coding scheme. He said he explained to the policemen that he was exempted from the rule since he was a member of the media.

Catabona claimed Tulfo’s group started the confrontation when one of them punched one of the policemen and poked a gun at him.

Tulfo said he asked for Catabona to come to the scene. When Catabona arrived, Tulfo said they surrendered all their weapons to him, including the guns that his bodyguards wrested away from the policemen.

“We were first brought to the Parañaque police station, but I asked that we be taken to a neutral place, which was the Southern Police District Headquarters inside Fort Bonifacio,” Tulfo said.

Police records showed that five .45-caliber pistols and two M-16 Armalite rifles with magazines were seized from Tulfo and his men.

Earlier, Catabona said he and his men would file charges against Tulfo's group for obstructing justice and seizing the firearms of police officers.

But SPD director Gen. Jose Gutierrez released Tulfo and his group without charges being filed against them. He said the issue had been settled amicably.

“I patched up things between Tulfo and the Parañaque police,” Gutierrez said.